Suppression of crosstalk in communication systems is an increasingly important practice for improving systems' reliability and the quality of communication. As the bandwidth of a communication systems increases, so does the importance of reducing or eliminating signal crosstalk.
In wired communication systems, crosstalk is caused by electromagnetic interference within a communication cable or between multiple cables. Crosstalk resulting from interaction between cables is known as alien crosstalk.
While crosstalk resulting from signals running within a single cable interfering with signals within the same cable can be managed using electronic crosstalk reduction methods, alien crosstalk poses additional problems because the qualities of the interfering or disturbing signal(s) are not known. Alien crosstalk has proven problematic in implementations such as 10 Gbps Ethernet communication over an installed base of Cat 6 or Cat 5e cable. In such cables, alien crosstalk can significantly hamper communication performance. Specially-designed cabling could be used to decrease alien crosstalk, but replacing existing cabling with newly-designed cabling entails significant expense.
Thus, there exists a need for alien crosstalk suppression methods and systems that may be used with installed cable.